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Copyright © 2001 Express Publishing Inc.
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For the week of  September 5 - 11, 2001

  Arts & Entertainment

Notes from a 
writers’ conference


By ADAM TANOUS
Express Arts Editor

The Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, once again, has proven to be a fertile ground for ideas, discussion and humor. Last week, hundreds of readers and writers gathered together to explore the theme "The Search for Identity." What follows are notes from just a few of the dozens of talks given over the course of the four-day conference.

Mitch Albom. If ever there were a writer who could be allowed writer’s block, it would be Mitch Albom. Albom, as everyone now knows, is a sports writer for the Detroit Free Press. Novelist Ethan Canin pointed out in introducing Albom that he has been named best sports writer in America 13 times by the Associated Sports Editors. In 1997, Albom published "Tuesdays with Morrie," the story of Albom’s rekindled friendship with his college professor, Morrie Schwartz, as the man died of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). Albom’s book became a best seller and has been on the New York Times best seller list for 200 weeks.

Albom spoke to an issue every writer and would-be writer may worry about: what if he or she has only one story to tell? What do you do next? And it was an issue he faced personally and only overcame by rereading his own book and contemplating conversations he had had with Morrie Schwartz, the subject of his book.

Albom spoke without notes in the "sportswriter tradition" and with humor about the experience of writing "Tuesdays with Morrie," trying to promote it on rinky-dink radio shows and having battles with his publisher about publication runs.

When the book took off and started selling wildly, Albom found himself "paralyzed." Not only was he struggling for new ideas, he kept getting pulled back into "Tuesdays with Morrie." People wanted to talk about it, have him somehow write about "other college professors," or "Wednesdays with Morrie" and other ludicrous ideas. He also found himself falling into the trap of thinking there was always a "younger writer" with the next hot idea out there, and that he couldn’t compete with that.

It is a particularly American affliction, Albom pointed out. It is one he overcame when he recalled a conversation with Morrie. Albom asked Morrie how he avoided being envious of the younger, healthier Albom. Morrie’s answer was that Albom should be envious of him. He, after all, had lived longer, had seen more. "Inside of me is every age I’ve ever been," Morrie said.

Another moment of revelation came to Albom when he realized that he didn’t need to "write what he knew." The pertinent standard is to "write what you feel … to find that point where what you know intersects with what you feel. The key is to find yourself in all of the stories you write."

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: One would be hard pressed to find a more erudite and fluid speaker than Moynihan. He spoke about secrecy in government, citing cases from the Venona encryptions, to the Bay of Pigs, to the Pentagon Papers, to the Iran Contra episode. He is the rare politician who undoubtedly knows a great deal and that one feels is actually telling the truth.

Moynihan spoke to the issue of secrecy being a form of "regulation where the government tells the people what they may know." He went on to underscore the tendencies of bureaucracies to self-propel their importance by keeping information secret.

He also made the point that "there are no secrets in science … you can hope for, perhaps, five years … and then someone will think it up or steal it." As evidence he referred to the development of the hydrogen bomb by Edward Teller and others. The point was made that "if Teller figured it out, then so would Sakharov (the Soviet physicist)," and he did, of course.

Ultimately, in matters of secrecy and the inappropriate use of it, "we have to see it as a matter that affects our democracy … This secrecy is corrosive and antithetical to democratic values." He finished with the rather dismal fact that we have learned very little from the mistakes of secrecy made over the last century.

Philip Levine: Though Philip Levine, in prefacing a reading of his poems, disparaged his reading abilities, nothing could be further from the truth. Levine is a remarkable reader. Not only is he very funny, he can grip an audience with a conviction and vision that permeates his voice. Violinist Joshua Bell, in an interview a few weeks ago, described how, during a live performance, he can often feel the "audience hanging on every note." Listening to Levine read, one could actually feel the dramatic tension in the conference tent and a commitment on the part of the audience.

Levine read a number of his poems and even one he had received in the mail from a young poet, Carolyn Sanderson.

People often say they don’t "get" poetry. But the imagery in Levine’s poetry is clear and true, the narrative line compelling. And, so often, in poems like "The Poem of Chalk" or "Smoke’ or one about "Monsieur Degas," Levine does what any writer would envy: he paralyzes his listeners with the truth hanging in the air.


The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.